


Broken Home

by smkkbert



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Future AU, Married Olicity, olicity angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 03:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5612662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smkkbert/pseuds/smkkbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous prompt: Felicity and Oliver have a fight, and Felicity takes the kids, and stays at her mom's for a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Home

**Author's Note:**

> Like so often this turned out quite different from what I had planned out when I started writing.  
> I hope you'll like it nonetheless. :)

She had made the right choice.

It had been hard and she had struggled with that choice for quite some time, but at the end it had been the best and probably the only thing she could have done because, although it hurt and she knew she wasn’t the only one who suffered from this choice, it had been just as bad before that choice had been made and it would only be worse now if she had decided differently.

So, yes, she had made the right choice.

Sighing, Felicity tightened her arms around the pillow she had rested her head on and took in a deep breath through her nose, then slowly breathed out through her mouth. Tears were threatening to form in her eyes. She felt it in the sudden burning in her throat and the need to blink way more often than she usually had to. But no matter how much her body told her that she needed to cry, Felicity held back the tears like she had done all this time. She had managed to hold them back for so long - she wouldn’t allow them to fall now.

Because once they started to fall, they wouldn’t stop anytime soon. And she couldn’t allow herself to cry and let all the feelings she had suppressed for so long now drag her down and drown her in misery.

_Because I don't have the luxury of falling to pieces._

A cold shiver ran down her spine at the memory of his voice and how cold it had sounded back then. Admittedly, she hadn’t understood what exactly he had meant when he had told her that after Sara had died and to be honest she still wasn’t sure that he had been right about feeling that way because they had all been adults and Oliver would have deserved to grieve just like everyone else had.

But Felicity’s situation was quite different from that. She needed to stay strong for the sake of their children because if she fell apart, so would her kids. The last thing she wanted was for her children to suffer. She had taken them here to get them a break from the constant fighting of their parents and not to make them suffer by showing them how sad and scared she was.

When a sudden sob left her lips, Felicity rolled onto her back and hid her face behind her hands. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took some deep breaths to get herself back under control, but the tears were falling against her will now and she didn’t feel able to stop them. But since Donna and Quentin had gone to the playground with the kids, Felicity was alone in her mother’s and her stepdad’s house anyway and decided that maybe she could allow herself some minutes of falling apart.

She just needed to put herself back together before the kids were back.

 

 

_“You’re packing?”_

_Felicity winced slightly at the sound of his voice. She had been so far away in her thoughts, imagining how she was going to tell him her plans without sounding like she was trying to punish him by taking something from him, that she hadn’t heard him approaching. She had heard him return from his morning jog and head right under the shower a few minutes ago, but then she had been too distracted to hear anything more or to continue being aware of what he was doing and where he going._

_She shortly turned her head to glance at him, answering his question with a nod of her head. He was leaning in the doorframe, wearing jeans and a deep blue dress shirt but no shoes and no socks. He could look relaxed to someone who didn’t know him as well as she did because his posture was giving him away. His hands were pushed in the pocket of his jeans, his head slightly ducked between his shoulders. He looked unhappy and Felicity was sure that he could see the same unhappiness in her face._

_Not bearing to see him like that, Felicity hastily looked away and concentrated on packing her suitcase once more. She could feel his gaze on her skin. He was watching her quietly from his position at the door and Felicity couldn’t help but feel nervous under the intensity of his gaze that she couldn’t see but feel in every cell of her body._

_“Where are Emmy and Tommy?” he asked quietly._

_“John and Lyla called. They were taking Sara to the zoo and offered to take Emmy and Tommy with them. They picked them up half an hour ago,” Felicity replied, shortly glancing at Oliver once more._

_Oliver stayed unmoving in the doorframe, looking at her without reacting to Felicity’s answer. He didn’t even nod. He just kept staring at her. Only when Felicity had already looked away and was packing the last pieces of clothes she had gotten out ready on the bed before into her suitcase, he straightened up and turned around to leave._

_“Oliver,” Felicity hastily held him back before he could take another step away. Dropping the clothes from her hands into the suitcase carelessly, she took two steps to him, but stopped several arm’s lengths away from him. The intensity of his gaze made it hard to form words because it made her heartbeat fasten and her breathing shorten. But Felicity knew that she needed to talk to him, so she took in a deep breath and said, “I thought we could use the opportunity with the kids not being here to… talk.”_

_She firmly bit down on her bottom lip and reminded herself of taking deep breaths, in through her nose and out through her mouth. But it wasn’t easy to concentrate on even breathing since Oliver crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked at her with a deep frown on his forehead. His lips were pressed together to two small lines._

_“I am not in the mood to fight with you again,” he stated with hard voice, every inch of his body showing defense and it broke her heart a little more than it was already broken._

_“Neither am I,” Felicity explained with a sigh. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”_

_Oliver narrowed his eyes slightly. He took a step forward, his arms still crossed in front of his chest. He was watching her closely, looking for a possibly hidden meaning of her words in her face. When he didn’t seem to find anything, he perked his eyebrows in question, not trusting that her words meant that their fight was over. After weeks of fighting without any end in sight, this sudden piece wouldn’t make sense._

_And unfortunately Felicity had to prove him right._

_“I think with the way things are between us lately we are not doing each other good and we are clearly not doing our children any good,” Felicity started calmly, trying to not stop although the hardness of Oliver’s facial expression was really making it hard to continue and not to start another fight instead. “And since I have that business meeting in Las Vegas this weekend, I called my mom and asked if the kids and I could stay at her and Quentin’s place for a while.”_

_Even before the last syllables had escaped her lips, the expression in Oliver’s face changed from the blank, hard expression it had shown when he had thought that they were about to fight once more like they had so often in the last weeks to something panic-like. Hastily she stepped forward and put her hands on his crossed forearms, trying to calm him down like she had done so many times before. It was the first intentional touch in more than two weeks and considering the way Oliver’s breathing faltered for a few seconds, it didn’t stay unnoticed by either of them._

_“We’re not leaving you. I am not leaving you,” Felicity explained when their gazes met, feeling out of breath. “I just think that this constant fighting is not leading us anywhere. And I can only speak for myself, but I am clearly too… I don’t even know what exactly I am, but whatever it is it makes it impossible for me to talk about this like we should do which is why we’re fighting all the time. And fighting is only making it worse, Oliver. The more we fight, the further we are drifting apart right now. And the kids sense that.”_

_The last words were only spoken in a barely audible whisper, but Oliver nodded, wordlessly telling her that he had heard them nonetheless. He still looked worried and maybe even a little bit scared. His eyes never left hers like he was afraid that if he blinked, she could disappear._

_“When I put Emmy to bed yesterday, she put her hands to my cheeks and told me that everything was going to be okay again and Tommy’s nightly crying fits do not come from nothing, either,” Felicity whispered, unable to find her voice. “They know that something is wrong, Oliver.”_

_Felicity had lain awake all night, her daughter’s words echoing through her mind over and over again. If her five-year-old felt the need to comfort her mother, it had to be really bad. And if there was one thing Felicity didn’t want, then it was dragging their kids into this._

_And that had been when she had made her choice._

_“What we need is a break from each other, so we can both figure out if this is still working for us or if it’s not,” she continued, interrupting only to take another deep breath in. “And I think a break is what Emmy and Tommy need, too. Spending some time with my mom and Quentin will hopefully distract them from… what was going on here lately. Emmy will probably know that something is wrong when we’re visiting them without you, but I’d rather have her suspect something from that than from our fighting.”_

_Felicity looked at Oliver, waiting for an answer or any hint on what he was thinking. But Oliver’s face stayed unmoving while he continued to stare at her. Even anger would be easier to bear then the silence. She squeezed his forearm gently, trying to make him talk, but again he didn’t react._

_“Oliver?” she whispered._

_He sighed, lowering his head with a sad expression in his eyes. Felicity bit her tongue. She had known that it would hurt him, but she really didn’t see a different chance on how to save their marriage right now. The longer they stayed together and fought, the worse it would get._

_She needed a break to clear her head and find out whether she could continue to still be with him. But she wouldn’t leave without her kids._

_“How… how long would you… stay away?” he asked without lifting his gaze._

_“I don’t know,” Felicity replied honestly. “A while I guess. But one call and we’ll come back. Like I said, we are not leaving you and… even if we decide that we should end… our marriage, I won’t take them away from you. Never. I hope you know that.”_

_Oliver nodded, his head still lowered. When he finally lifted his gaze, he looked agonized. Felicity squeezed his forearms in comfort because as little as she felt able to be with him right now, she didn’t want him to suffer, either._

_“If you think that this is the best we can do right now,…” Oliver said, leaving the second part of the sentence unfinished, and only nodded quietly._

_“I really think it is the best we can do for now.”_

_“When are you going to leave?”_

_“Tomorrow morning.”_

_“Can I take you guys to the airport?”_

_“Sure.”_

_“Can I call… from time to time?” he asked._

_Felicity cocked her head, smiling at him sadly. “Of course. I think the kids would be happy about video chats or video calls, too, so…”_

_They looked at each other for a while before Oliver whispered, “Felicity?”_

_“Hm?”_

_“I don’t want to get divorced.”_

_They looked at each other quietly. Felicity’s thumb moved in circles on Oliver’s forearm and she could feel that it was eliciting goosebumps on his skin. Part of her wanted to lower her gaze and watch the effect her touch had on his skin, but the intensity of his eyes stopped her from doing so. Instead she kept looking at him, holding his gaze. No matter how onerous things had been between the two of them lately, she could still drown in the blue of his eyes. Felicity’s eyes lowered to his lips shortly, trying to remember what they felt like against her lips. How easy would it be to just lean forward, brush her lips against his and find out?_

_But as soon as the thought had crossed her mind, Oliver took a step back and her hands moved off his forearms, falling to her sides._

_“Did you pack Emmy’s and Tommy’s bags yet?”_

_Felicity shook her head, trying to ignore the ache of her heart. “I wanted to talk to you first.”_

_“I’ll go pack their bags then,” Oliver said quietly, turned around and left._

 

Felicity sighed comfortably, feeling the blanket being pulled over her. She buried her face into the pillow shortly, then turned her head back and sighed once more. A gentle hand tugged a strand of her hair out of her face.

“Oliver?” Felicity whispered sleepily, reaching out her hand to grab his fingers and keep his hand close to her face, preferably using it as an additional pillow. But the second her fingers mad contact with the too small and too soft hand, her eyes snapped open. “Mom.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you, honey,” Donna said with a gentle smile on her lips and stroked her free hand gently over her daughter’s hair like she had already done when Felicity had been a little girl. “Do you want some hot milk? And yes, I know you are not ten anymore, but I think it still helps.”

“Helps with what?” Felicity asked, her voice sounding hoarse – whether from sleep or from crying, she didn’t know.

Donna cocked her head, sitting down at the edge of the mattress while Felicity rolled from her stomach to her side, propping up onto her elbow and resting his head on her hand. Donna gently tugged another stand of her hair out of her daughter’s face.

“You’ve been here for more than two week now and all the time my maternal instinct told me that something is wrong,” Donna explained with a sigh, lifting her fingers to list the things that proved that there was something wrong. “You brought the kids with you but not Oliver which in most families is perfectly normal, but the two of you are usually inseparable. Whenever someone else than the kids brings the conversation round Oliver, you change the subject, so you don’t have to talk about him. When Emmy and Tommy make their video calls with Oliver, you pretend to have something important to do and the one time you talked to Oliver afterwards, you went to some other room and then you looked sad when you came back after three minutes. You-“

“Got it,” Felicity interrupted her mother hastily, not needing to hear all the things that were obviously wrong about her right now.

“You’re here for more than two weeks already, honey,” Donna continued calmly. “I thought if I just gave you time, you would open up to me, but-“

“Mom, this is not about you and me,” Felicity interrupted her mother quietly, putting her free hand to her mother’s and squeezing reassuringly. “If there is one person who I’d like to talk to about this, it’s you. But it’s complicated.”

How was she supposed to tell her mother that Oliver hadn’t been in the hospital because he had been randomly shot during a nightly motorcycle ride in the Glades? That had been the very uncreative but at least well working cover story they had told. They had sold it to the police, to the media and to everyone else who couldn’t know the truth about what had happened. John had made it up while they had been waiting for Oliver to get out of surgery. Felicity barely remembered. She had been physically there, but mentally absent.

And how was she supposed to tell her mother that the truth was that Oliver had been chasing after criminals as the Green Arrow like he had done for the last years, but that for some reason he had decided to fight them alone instead of waiting for back-up like she had told him to which had caused him to get beaten-up and shot and nearly killed?

And how was she supposed to tell her that Oliver just refused to see how stupid it really was what he had done, claiming that there had been no other choice and he had done what had been necessary to keep the city and hence his family safe? Of course he had apologized, multiple times to be honest, but for him that had been it like a few words should have been enough to wipe that off her mind and make her forget what he had risked. And when it hadn’t and she had still been mad and told him that they couldn’t just act like everything was the same, they had started fighting.

Felicity knew that Oliver took risks. Since she knew him, he had always taken risks – first as the Hood and the Arrow and later on as the Green Arrow and the mayor of Star City. Felicity had always supported him because she knew that Oliver could do good and she had wanted to help him and do good herself. When they had agreed that maybe it was time to start trying for a baby, they had discussed whether they could still take those risks because children changed everything. But with John and Lyla as their example, they had found a way to make it work.

Until now.

Donna lay down next to her daughter and immediately Felicity needed to think back to her first real fight with Oliver when she had been feeling she had lost herself in him. Back then Donna and she had lain like this on the bed in the penthouse, talking about what had bothered her. And it had helped.

“He almost died, mom,” Felicity whispered, new tears forming in her eyes. “He-“

He voice broke and she sobbed. Immediately her mother was there, wrapping her arms around her and holding her close. Felicity hid her face against her mother’s neck and cried the tears she didn’t know she had left after she had cried herself to sleep before. Donna rubbed her back comfortingly like Felicity did for her own children when they were crying.

Oliver had almost died. He had almost died. She had almost lost him. She had almost lost her husband. Emmy and Tommy had almost lost their father. They had almost lost him. All of them had almost lost him.

“I know, honey. I know,” Donna whispered calmingly, not stopping to rub Felicity’s back. “When you’ve been shot right after you got engaged to Oliver, we both, Oliver and I, were devastated. We were so scared that we were going to lose you, but you made it. So everything should have been okay again because the doctor said you were going to be fine again and you recovered, but that feeling, this terrible feeling that we almost lost you, stayed. When you’re so close to losing someone you love, you don’t ever get completely over it. And you certainly don’t  get over it in less than two months.”

“But he’s acting like everything is fine, mom,” Felicity sobbed, pulling back slightly to look at her mother while wiping the tears away from her cheeks. “He acts like nothing happened.”

Donna smiled softly, cocking her head. “Do you remember what happened after you were released from the hospital after being shot at?”

“Oliver was completely overprotective,” Felicity remembered, rolling her eyes at the thought. He had hovered over her. Wherever she had gone, he had followed only one step behind her because he had been afraid that she could fall or lose consciousness or feel the pain from her healing wounds. He hadn’t let her make anything herself. Two weeks she had been patient. “And then I called him out about it and forbid him to continue like that, much to his frustration, but he stopped.”

Donna smiled, shaking her head, and Felicity frowned.

“Come on, honey, you cannot honestly believe that only a few days after you were shot, everything turned back to normal again for him,” Donna almost chuckled, but then got serious again. “When I came visiting you for your engagement party weeks later, he was still hovering over you, watching your every move and making sure that you were alright. He just did so from distance and hid it better, so you wouldn’t realize.”

“But he-“

“He did what he thought you needed and wanted. You didn’t want to be protected because you didn’t want to feel helpless and broken. And you didn’t want Oliver to worry so much, so you acted a lot more independent than was good for you maybe and don’t try to object to that,” Donna hastily added when Felicity opened her mouth to do exactly what her mother had known she wanted to do. “You were in a lot more of pain than you admitted to anyone because you could have used a lot more help than you admitted to anyone, including yourself.”

Felicity lowered her gaze and quietly cursed her mother for knowing her so well. She had visited them a lot during the time Felicity had recovered and of course she had seen right through Felicity’s assurances that she was alright and didn’t need any help. Because Felicity had been in a lot of pain the weeks following the shooting, but she had rather taken the physical pain than the humiliation that would have come with accepting constant help for everything she did.

“I guess what Oliver is doing is just the same thing, honey,” Donna continued. “Oliver acts like everything is perfectly fine because he doesn’t want you to worry.”

“It’s… different now,” Felicity replied. “We are a family now.”

“You’ve been a family back then, too,” Donna objected. “You didn’t have kids and you weren’t married, but you have been a family.”

“It’s… still different.”

Because she had been shot at while riding home from her engagement in the back of a limo and only because all of them as a team had decided that giving away Darhk’s identity had been the right thing to do. She had been shot at because they had tried to save the city together.

Oliver had been shot at while being on a mission, a mission that could have gone so much better if he had only waited for John, Laurel and Thea who had been on other places at the same location and wouldn’t even have needed five minutes to come help him. But the great, invulnerable Oliver Queen had played a lone hand and had ended almost dead.

“All I am trying to say is,” Donna said after a while, patting her daughter’s thigh gently, “that Oliver loves Emmy, Tommy and you more than anything else in this world and if you feel that he is acting weirdly about what happened, then I trust your judgment because you know your husband, but I refuse to believe that Oliver acts like that because he doesn’t care. Maybe it is the other way around and he is trying to not let this get too close to him because he knows that not much had been missing for him to die and for you to lose him.”

Felicity nodded slightly, not sure whether this was helping her as much as she had hoped because of course her mother was right about Oliver and about how much he loved his family and that he didn’t want them to lose him, but…

But with playing lone hand like in his earlier days instead of waiting for help he had taken a risk he hadn’t needed to take because help had been on his way already. And doing so, he had risked getting hurt and even worse dying and hence leaving her and their kids alone.

They were taking enough risks as it was and she never complained because usually Oliver knew what risks to take and which ones not to take, but had he really needed to take a risk that hadn’t been needed to be taken?

 “Felicity?”

“Hm?”

“I know I’ve said it before, a few times over the years actually, but…” Donna started, frowning shortly. She took her daughter’s hand in hers and squeezed comfortingly. “Oliver is not your father, honey.”

Donna didn’t need to go into detail about what that meant. Felicity knew what her mother was trying to tell her by summing up everything that was important and right about Oliver in that one statement.  
Oliver loved her.  
Oliver lover their kids.  
Oliver loved being a husband and he loved being a father.  
Oliver was a good man with a good heart.  
Oliver was not like her father, the one man who had left Felicity and whose departure she had only gotten over after Oliver had stepped into her life and had truly rebuilt her trust in men and relationships.

“I know,” Felicity whispered. “And that is exactly why I feel I won’t get over it if he leaves or dies and that scares me.”

“Of course it scares you. Everybody would be scared in that situation,” Donna told her. “But Oliver is still here and I know it seems logical that if you push him away, you won’t ever have to suffer from losing him when he leaves or he dies, but, hon, if you’re pushing him away, you’re losing him anyway.”

Felicity took in a deep breath, letting her mother’s words sink in.

Maybe her mother was right. She probably was. This was part of the problem, but it wasn’t the whole thing. The fact that Oliver took unnecessary risks and hence risked leaving them was at least just as much part of it.

“Oliver and you should fight for your marriage.”

“We did fight. A lot. Too much actually,” Felicity said, shaking her head and sighing. “This is why I came here with the kids. If we fight, we fight and we fight loudly and the kids notice and…”

Felicity took in another deep breath and shook her head. It was all so complicated.

If the circumstances were any different, she wouldn’t have left because she wasn’t the kind of person to pack her things and leave instead of fighting for what she wanted. But with little kids around it wasn’t easy to fight without feeling guilty for ruining their childhood. Leaving and coming here should have lessened the anger and help her to take a step towards Oliver, but the longer she stayed, the harder it got to go back.

“You can stay here as long as you want to,” Donna promised. “Quentin and I love to have you and the kids here. Just don’t forget that you have something or rather someone in Star City you should fight for. The two of you have been through much and you have something most people never get. Don’t give up now.”

“Thank you, mom,” Felicity said, leaning over and kissing her mother on the cheek. “I think I’d like to be alone for some minutes now before I need to put the kids to bed and-“

A knocking at the door made the two women turn their heads.

“Quentin, I was just about to come back downstairs and help you with the kids,” Donna said. “Felicity needed a few minutes anyway and-“

“Laurel called,” Quentin interrupted his wife’s babble, looking at his stepdaughter intensely. “I think you have to go home.”

 

 

His whole body was shaking as he nervously walked up and down the hallway, trying to keep himself together instead of falling apart like he knew he would if he gave into the feeling that was trying to take over.

For weeks he had felt like being on the edge of falling apart. First he had been beaten up and shot and almost died which had never been so frightening as in that moment since all he had been able to think about had been Felicity and Emmy and Tommy and how they would never see them again and at least Tommy would never remember his dad. Then the whole fight with Felicity had started and soon escalated. He had tried to apologize. He had tried to tell her how sorry he was. But she hadn’t wanted to listen. And looking back now, he got why.

Too late, Oliver knew. He should have seen it sooner because he had been in the position of waiting in the hallway while a person he loved was having surgery before and he knew how it felt and he should have known what Felicity had been through when he had had surgery.

And some lame apologies were not making it any better that he had put her through that.

Now she was in Las Vegas with Emmy and Tommy and he was here, in the same hallway she had probably been pacing up and down a few weeks ago, waiting for someone to come and tell him that Thea was alright. The second time in less than ten years he was waiting for someone to tell him that his sister was alive.

Exhaustedly Oliver let himself fall into one of the seats and hid his face in his hands. He felt like crying, but he had cried so often since Felicity had left to spend a few days with her mother and her stepfather, he didn’t feel like there were any tears left. And if he cried, he preferred crying alone at home with his face buried in Felicity’s pillow instead of his hands.

“She is going to be alright, Oliver,” John said calmly. “Everything is going to be alright.”

Oliver only snorted.

For so long everything had been perfect. Crime rate had decreased and nobody had been dangerously injured in more than eighteen months. The team worked together so well that they had split up in sub-teams for routine nights and only called in the whole team when there was a bigger threat. Otherwise it was John, Thea and Curtis and Laurel, Felicity and him. Felicity usually managed everything from home since with two little kids she didn’t have the time to come to their hide-out every night or every second night or whatever. And if she needed to leave home, Thea took care of her niece and her nephew.

He had been a mayor and he had been the Green Arrow and he had been a husband and a father and everything had been perfect. He was good at the things he was doing, better than he had ever imagined.

And that had made him a little careless for a moment and he had made a stupid choice and now he was paying for it with his family.

First he had lost Felicity and the kids because he had been reckless in the field, now he was losing his sister because he had been unfocused in the field.

If Thea died, it was his fault. He got back up restlessly and once again started pacing up and down the hallway. She had been in the OR for so long now. Hours.

“This isn’t your fault, Oliver,” John said. “If-“

“If I had been focused, I would have seen that there was one more guy and I would have taken him out before he got the chance to get to Thea,” Oliver hissed, never stopping walking. “Why does everything go wrong lately?”

Nobody answered. Everybody looked down on the floor. Only John gave him one of those looks only John could give him.

“Did you call her?” John asked.

Oliver shook his head, looking away. “She needs space and time and I promised to give that to her. I don’t want her to come back before she is ready.”

“I think she would want to know, Ollie,” Laurel stated. “Thea is family to her, no matter what is going on between the two of you right now.”

Oliver slowly stopped pacing and looked from John to Laurel and finally to Curtis. While Laurel and Curtis were still avoiding his gaze, John looked right back at him, giving him another one of his looks.

“You called her,” Oliver stated, not needing confirmation since he just knew he was right.

“We all did,” John said with a nod of his head.

“Well, to be fair, I called my dad,” Laurel said.

Groaning, Oliver rubbed the palms of his hands over his face.

She had wanted space and now she would come back because she felt obligated to, but as soon as Thea would have mostly recovered, they would be right where they had left two weeks and three days ago. And they would fight until she wouldn’t be able to take it anymore and-

“Daddy!”

The moment he heard Emmy’s voice, Oliver turned around and let himself fall down onto his knees, spreading his arms for his daughter and immediately she came running towards him and flung her short arms around his neck. Oliver had trouble not crushing her in his arms. He had to remind himself that she was only a kid and he needed to be gentle no matter how much he wanted to hold her tightly and never let her go. Turning his head and pressing kisses to the side of his daughter’s face, he breathed her in to reassure himself that she was really there.

Oliver shot a short glance in the direction of the elevators, but couldn’t find who he was looking for, so without loosening the grip he had on her, he asked Emmy, “Where’s mommy?”

“Coming,” Emmy replied. “Tommy doesn’t let her carry her, but he walks so slowly. And he gets distracted by pretty nurses.”

Oliver chuckled slightly. “How was your vacation? Did you have fun with granny and grandpa?”

“Yes,” Emmy replied, snuggling her head to her father’s shoulder. “But I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

God, he had missed them. Having her back in his arms, Oliver realized how much he had really missed them and it was even more than he had thought.

“Wanna know a secret?” Emmy whispered.

“Always,” Oliver whispered back.

Emmy leaned her lips against his ear, whispering, “Mommy missed you, too.”

She had missed him. He shouldn’t be surprised by that because Felicity had never said that she didn’t love him anymore or anything like that. She had only stated that she hadn’t been sure if she had it in herself to forgive him for carelessly risking his life when he had a wife and two little children to come home to because she had lost some of the trust she had always had in him.

He would earn that trust back. He didn’t know how, but he would do it. He wouldn’t-

 “Tommy, you gotta walk. Come on, a few more- No, we are not going back to that pretty nurse, honey.”

At the sound of Felicity’s voice, Oliver lifted his gaze, looking to where Felicity approached them. She was wearing her pajama pants and an orange shirt, barely wore make-up. She must have come here as soon as she had heard. Tommy was walking in front of her, his little hands formed to fists around her forefingers. Only smiling at Oliver, Tommy stopped once again, making Felicity sigh.

“Dadda!” he exclaimed with a giggle and looked up to Felicity before he looked at his father again. “Dadda!”

“Yes, there’s daddy,” Felicity said encouragingly. “Come on, let’s go to daddy!”

As if he had just been waiting for his mother’s consent, the little boy started running towards him, never letting go of Felicity’s fingers. Only when he reached out an arm for him and wrapped his arm around the boy’s little waist, Tommy let go of his mother and snuggled up to his father.

“Hi, buddy,” Oliver whispered, kissing Tommy’s head like he had kissed Emmy’s before. “Did you practice walking a lot while being with granny?”

“He did,” Emmy replied for her little brother. “But he still doesn’t walk on his own.”

“Well, Tommy is being careful to not fall, right?” Oliver asked his son and the boy smiled happily.

Oliver pressed both of his kids to his chest, turning his head to kiss both of them alternately. He could stay like this forever. Having his children in his arms was always comforting, especially after not seeing them in so long. It had been too long since he had last held them. He didn’t want to open his eyes. He wanted to get lost in this moment of having both his kids with him again, but when he heard quiet whispers, he did open them to see Laurel, Curtis, John and Felicity whisper secretly.

Felicity looked beautiful as always although Oliver didn’t miss how she seemed exhausted. Her eyes were slightly redder than usually, her skin a little bit pale. And yet she was so beautiful.

“Daddy, I’m hungry,” Emmy suddenly said.

“Come on, Emmy,” John said, reaching out his hand for his goddaughter. “Curtis, Laurel and I will go to the cafeteria with you and Tommy and get you something to eat.”

Emmy looked back at Oliver shortly and when he nodded, she took John’s hand. Oliver got up and lifted Tommy into his arms. He kissed the boy’s cheek before he handed him over to Laurel. Tommy yawned tiredly. This was usually long past bedtime for him.

“If you need us, you know where to find us,” John said and headed to the elevators. The others followed.

Oliver’s gaze was fixed on his children while they left. Emmy immediately tried to convince John that she didn’t need a full meal. Sweets were enough for her. Tommy looked like he was almost asleep already. He rested his head on Laurel’s shoulder. His right hand played with her hair, his left hand waved goodbye at them and he was still waving when the doors of the elevator shut behind them.

Taking in a deep breath, Oliver turned his head to look at Felicity. She stood in the middle of the hallway, a few feet away from him, looking back at him. Neither of them moved and neither of them talked for a few seconds.

“Hey,” she quietly whispered then.

“Hi,” Oliver whispered back.

“Thea is going to be alright.”

“I hope so. The doctors couldn’t say much when they took her to the OR and she is still in there, so I didn’t get an update yet.”

“Thea is a fighter.”

“Yes, she is,” Oliver replied with a low sigh.

Again they only looked at each other for a while, not saying a word. Oliver wanted to say a thousand things, but he didn’t feel like now was the time for any of them. So he stayed silent and just looked at her, holding his hands behind his back to stop himself from grabbing her and crushing her against him like he had done with Emmy and Tommy before.

“How are you?” Felicity asked after a while. “Are you alright?”

Oliver opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Instead tears were forming in his eyes and when he took in a breath, he felt the first rolling down his cheek. He wanted to wipe it away, but Felicity’s fingers were already there, caressing his skin gently and drying the wetness the tear had left.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, gently pushing him back until he sat in one of the seats at the wall. She sat down on his lap and pressed his head to her chest, so he could listen to the beat of her heart. She knew that it calmed him down.

“Sorry,” Oliver whispered, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her impossibly close. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Felicity whispered, resting her chin on top of his head. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out.”

He had forgotten. He had forgotten what it felt like to be in a hospital hallway and fear for the life of his loved ones. On should think that you would never forget, but the last times he had been in the hospital had been for happy reasons like the births of his children and somehow he had forgotten how shaking it was to be here and wait. And he had put Felicity through exactly this. Not intently but carelessly.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered again and again while he cried and let the scent of her skin and the warmth of her body comfort him. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Oliver didn’t know how long this continued. He apologized while crying and Felicity comforted him and told him that it was going to be alright. Her right hand rubbed his back, her left hand cradled his head to her chest. Her thumb caressed his stubble. He couldn’t repeat his apology too often. She needed to know how sorry he was. She just needed to know.

For a while he was too distracted by his own sorrow and by how much he had missed her and Emmy and Tommy that it took him a little while until he felt the tears dropping from her eyes onto his neck. But the moment he realized that she must be crying, too, he lifted his head from her chest to look at her. Her eyes were puffy and red, wet streams on her cheeks showed where the tears had rolled down her face.

He lifted a hand and moved the tips of his fingers over her soft skin, wiping the tears away like she had with his. But Felicity put her hand over his and snuggled her cheek into the palm of his hand. Sighing, she closed her eyes and put her nose to his wrist, breathing him in.

“I am sorry about what I put you through,” Oliver whispered and immediately her eyes opened. “It was never my intention to die and leave you and Emmy and Tommy. I was just stupid which is no excuse, but it is the only thing I can offer right now.”

Felicity nodded. “We will have to work on your attitude about taking unnecessary risks, I guess.”

“We?” Oliver asked, trying to hold back the hope in case he was wrong.

“We,” Felicity affirmed, though, nodding her head. She put her hand on his heart and looked him straight in the eyes. “The day we got married, I promised you that we were going to get through the good and the bad times together. And I promised you to forgive your mistakes and together we would make it work, no matter what obstacles there were. I meant that promise. So I will be here and together we will work through this. I might still be angry with you, but… I love you and don’t want to give up on us.”

“Neither do I,” Oliver whispered. “And I am so sor-“

Felicity put her fingers on his lips and shook her head. “Right now is not the time for this. We will talk about all of this when Thea is better and we’ve all had some hours of sleep and something to eat.”

Oliver nodded, wrapping both of his arms around her and leaning his head against her shoulder. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

“Never,” Felicity whispered.

They sat like that for some while. Felicity massaged the back of Oliver’s head while he rubbed her back. Nobody said a word. It was the first comfortable silence in weeks, the first silence that wasn’t filled with unspoken accusations and anger. It was rather the comfortable silence of two people who had missed each other and finally together again.

When the nurse finally came and told them that Thea was going to be alright and Oliver could see her, he nodded and immediately followed the nurse. He only stopped after a few steps to turn around and look at Felicity.

“Are you still here when I come back?”

“Where else would I be?” Felicity asked with a tired smile. “Go. I’ll be here when you come back.”

And she was. Of course she was.


End file.
